


Amen and Amontillado

by Gozer



Category: Blackadder, Real Person Fiction, The Real Ghostbusters
Genre: Gen, Humor, Parody
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-06-30
Updated: 2013-06-30
Packaged: 2017-12-16 16:26:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,847
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/864124
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Gozer/pseuds/Gozer
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Into every life a little death, destruction, and disaster must fall.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Amen and Amontillado

**Author's Note:**

> I really have no idea what possessed me to write this. ;)

Into every life a little death, destruction, and disaster must fall, mused Edmund Blackadder, Esq., personal valet to the Prince of Wales and head of His Majesty’s household at Brighton Palace, to himself. He dipped his quill into an ornate crystal inkwell and shook excess ink from the nib, preparatory to writing yet another pithy line of prose. The desk, and consequently the paper, shook beneath the butler’s hand.

“Baldrick, will you cease your cowardly quivering; else I shall never get this written!”

As his scullery-drudge (and the bane of his existence), S. Baldrick, huddled beneath the writing desk, moaning and clutching a meticulously hand-carved, gilded desk-leg; an answering moan came from beneath the floorboards, rising up from the depths of the Prince Regent’s cellar. It climbed the musical scale to end in a high-pitched shriek, causing the hair on the back of Blackadder’s neck to rise and the desk to shake even more than it had before.

“Oh, Mr. Blackadder! wailed the frightened lackey, “My life is not worth that of a vixen on the Duke of Marleboro’s estate on a warm Saturday afternoon! I’m for it, as sure as sure can be!”

The butler’s eyes rolled skyward as he wrote upon the shaking desk as best he could. “Oh, Baldrick, don’t exaggerate. The thing’s been in the basement for three days now, and it has yet to come swarming up the stairs, looking for an ill-smelling village idiot to knosh on. You’re perfectly safe from its predations where you are.”

"That’s as may be," whimpered Baldrick, tears carving clean rivulets on his dirty face, “but at the moment, I’m not worried about the ghost in the basement. I’ve just had an accident all over the brand-new oriental carpet, and you’re going to kill me, you are.”

"Damn you, Baldrick, I thought you were more pungent than usual," sniffed Blackadder, nose wrinkling in disgust. “That’s the final straw! After you clean up the mess you’ve quite literally made, I want you to take this note directly to an old colleague of mine from my school days.”

This revelation was enough to pull the tattered kitchen drone from under the desk to peer up at his master. “Y’mean you have an old school chum, Mr. B., sir?” he gasped in awe. “You?”

"Not exactly a ‘chum’, Baldrick." The butler took the momentary respite to quickly sign off the letter, dry it with the blotter, and fold it. “I sat next to him during exams and copied all his answers.”

The thing in the cellar causing all the trouble had, indeed, arrived three days before; announcing its arrival with a series of shrieks, screams, and moans so horrific that the servants had gone nearly catatonic with terror, and refused even to go near the stairs leading down to the cellar. Blackadder, as master of the servant’s hall, had naturally pooh-poohed their fears—but as Baldrick had sagely observed, “Them what doesn’t ante up, don’t get to call the cards.” No one knew precisely what he meant by this, but it was obvious to all that Mr. Blackadder was only making excuses for his own reluctance to go below.

It went without saying that the mysterious “haunting” brought life at Brighton Castle to a virtual standstill. The cellar, like those of all the great residences of Europe, was more than just a storage place for wine—it housed the provisions for the entire household. Smoked meats and trussed fowl hung, abandoned, in the coolest corner. Barrels of apples and potatoes stood, gathering dust. Sacks and sacks of flour, needing to be turned weekly to prevent mold, sagged on the floor of the enourmous pantry, slowly turning grey. Shelves full of wax-clad wheels of cheese and jars of jams, jellies and other ‘put-up’ produce covered several walls—all of it unopened, untouched, uneaten. Available food, in short, was limited to whatever had been in the kitchen proper at the time the haunting began—and, while the frightened servants were more than willing to put up with the monotony, Prince George was quite frankly getting a little tired of take-out curry for three days of breakfasts, lunches and dinners.

"If I see a yet another chicken vindaloo, I shall surely lose my princely composure! And I’ll warrant that’s not a thing any man’d wish to see if it could be avoided, eh, Bl’adders?" cried His Highness. He threw down the menu to “Ye Delicacies of India & Fortnum’s" in disgust.

“No, Highness... will you have a chicken kabob instead?”

“NO! And what’s infinitely worse, we’ve not had any spirits for three days, either!”

Blackadder, wincing at the word “spirits”, smiled and bowed smoothly. “It is a new diet, Your Highness," he lied expertly, “The Doctor Calagari System of Health. Nothing but spicy Indian foods for a week and no alcohol, it flushes impurities from the humours and brings red to the cheek and a glint to the eye.”

"Well, I’d say I’m definitely out-of-humour and I’m going to be quite red in the face with a mad glint in my eye if I don’t get some proper, decent, princely food in me! I want a properly carved roast with all the trimmings for dinner; boiled veg, Yorkshire pudding, a meat pie for middles, a different wine with every course and my best port for afters! Pip, pip, Bl’adders, see to it.”

The butler bowed stiffly, gliding backwards to the door, and had almost made good his escape when a piercing ghostly shriek came from below.

"Ye gods, and what was that?" goggled the prince, gathering his silken robes about him in horror.

“It’s only Baldrick, Your Majesty. His favourite turnip will have to be sacrificed for this evening’s meal’s ‘trimmings’ and he’s not happy about it.”

“Well, I’m dashed, the prince said, “and I hope you’re not trying this beastly Wog diet on the staff. You give him some drippings and a Yorkshire pudding and he’ll be as right as rain come morning. See to it, Bl’adders.”

Blackadder grimaced politely and pulled the doors shut after one more bow.

“Baldrick! Baldrick! Is that fool back from his errand yet?” the butler muttered to himself as he stormed into the servants’ hall.

“Mr. B., sir,” Baldrick popped out from behind the closet door by the entrance, causing the man he addressed to spin around, startled. “Mr. B., why won’t you tell His Princeness there’s an eerie presence in the cellar?”

“Because, you dimwit, if I tell him about the ghost, he’s going insist I go charging down there to deal with it and I’m going have to refuse, and then he’ll find out I’m afraid of the damn’d thing! And I do not wish to endure ‘Yellow-adder’ jokes for the rest of my service here!”

“Aw, Mr. B.; and you told me! You must trust me! Or else how’d’you know I won’t make jokes on you like the prince would?”

“Because I can’t do _this_ to _him_!”

_WHACK!_

After Baldrick had picked himself up off the floor, he handed the butler the letter he’d received in answer from Blackadder’s old friend.

“Hoorah,” cried the butler upon reading it, “He’s interested in our little ‘spiritual’ predicament! And, as there’s an international scientific exhibition going on here in London, he’ll be bringing several of his fellow scholars along to examine the problem! Baldrick, return to—good heavens, and he’s a Lord, now, too!—’Lord’ Egon’s residence and tell him I’ll meet him and his compatriots at Mrs. Miggin’s Pie Shop—no, better make it at Ye Delicacies of India & Fortnum’s, that is the only establishment in town foolish enough to extend us any credit—in half-an-hour. Pip, pip, Baldrick, see to it!”

 

 

* * *

It was true—the Indian restaurant was the only foody establishment still willing give the over-extended prince’s household credit, for the sheer joy of being able to brag about it. An enourmous sign “Restaurant To Royalty” hung in the window, the tri-feather symbol of the Prince of Wales emblazoned in full colour beneath the words. This symbol graced the newly-printed menus and decorated the waistcoats of the bustling waiters, too.

Blackadder recognized his old school “chum” almost immediately—no one could mistake the fully six-foot tall intellectual for anyone else, even after the passing years. His pince-nez still clasped his aquiline nose making it possible for those two incredibly near-sighted blue eyes to see more than a foot away, his un-bewigged hair was still straw-coloured, his long face was still set in the same dour, yet oddly agreeable, expression. He looked as if he’d done well for himself as a secular exorcist after they’d parted their ways at school; and if he’d been made a Lord, he had. Accompanying him were three remarkable-looking people, all enjoying a curry-and-ale and speaking animatedly to one another. Lord Egon stood when Blackadder entered the establishment and greeted him.

“Edmund, over here. Edmund Blackadder, I brought with me some of the brightest minds engaged in the study of spiritualistic phenomena today; all are interested in your ghostly problem. Allow me to present them to you.” Blackadder was not surprised at the lack of sentimentality and warmth in his old school-chum’s demeanor; Egon had always been a man of few pleasantries. The exorcist turned and indicated a cherubic-faced, stoutish man of pleasant mien who nodded cheerfully, “This is my business partner, the occultist Dr. Raymond Stanz. His paper Zie Skarie-Gossenshmirtz die Melnicksh revolutionized table-tapping in the Balkan states.” The German doctor ducked his head modestly.

“We are honoured to have for the first time on this continent, that most noble shaman, Zed-mor. I have corresponded with him for years at his residence on the Ivory Coast. No one knows more about native curses and demons than he.” That gentleman was clad in the finest British tweeds, yet the tiny gold-chased bone hanging from his left ear indicated an exciting, savage past.

And last but not least, Lord Egon gestured to a rather handsome young man with an impertinent grin on his face, his leg draped casually and comfortably over his chair’s arm, “This is Dr. Piotre Venk, a psychic and renowned spiritualist from the Americas, the New York City area to be precise.”

“In the interest of true precision, I am from ‘Haarlam’,” corrected the affable doctor. “My father would plotz if he heard you call our home ‘New York.’ The old reactionary still refers to the city proper as ‘New Amsterdaam’, which it hasn’t been called for 100 years or so.” He shrugged his shoulders at his father’s stubbornness.

“And me!” a small voice piped up from the vicinity of the American doctor. Upon closer examination, Blackadder notice a tiny, pink hand waving at him from behind the dishes of food on the table. The hand proved to be attached to a small boy. Leaning closer, Blackadder saw two large, liquid eyes regarded him steadily, deep-set into a too-large head, balanced upon an underdeveloped body. The child was dressed in a sober black suit; the emblem on the pocket indicating one of the pricier suburban London boarding schools. “I like ghosts,” the little boy said solemnly.

“My sister’s kid, Edgar,” Dr. Venk smiled. “I’m stuck with him today, hope you don’t mind. He starts school tomorrow; don’t you, Edgar?”

The boy did not answer, but continued to stare gravely at Blackadder, who stared back for a moment, until, with an unnerved cough, he broke eye-contact with the odd child. Blackadder turned to smile at the group, putting aside the mask of cynicism that threatened to settle over his sharp features. The fabled Blackadder charm he usually employed when convincing the tradespeople not to cut off the Prince’s credit came, as usual, to his rescue.

“I cannot express adequately the pleasure it is with which I greet you, gentlemen!” He told them of the wails, ungodly shrieks, and screams emanating from the cellar. They listened, and Dr. Stanz leaned forward eagerly, round-eyed with suppressed joy.

“Interesting,” said Egon, in understatement. “Could you make out any intelligible phrases, or is it a non-lucid phenomenon?”

“Well...,” Blackadder considered, “Now that you mention, it all started when I sent my scullery-drudge, Baldrick, down to the wine cellar to pick out a sweet Madeira for His Royal Annoyance’s tea. Someone yelled out, ‘For the love of God, my master,’ or some such religious phrase; Balders jumped back six feet and destroyed about £20 worth of a case of middling port. He’s still picking bits of glass—among other, less savoury, things—out of himself.”

“Ah! A Class ‘B’ zpirit, I vould think,” said Dr. Stanz with some excitement.

“Class ‘B’—that’s your basic “can’t-leave-’til-it’s-finished-its-business-on-this-plane-of-existence type vapour. You find out why this moke can’t get to rest, explain it to, uh, him, and he’s history,” the flippant American spread his hands in a ‘that’s all she wrote’ gesture.

“Y-e-e-e-s, well, that could pose a problem. No one will go near the thing. It’s colder than an Eskimo’s eyelid down there and the noise’d set anyone’s teeth on edge,” Blackadder nimbly side-stepped any reference to his own fears.

“Class B’s are not usually dangerous. True, they are annoying, but not dangerous. I oftentimes think if they were not such noodjes in life, they would not be such nuisances as spirits,” Lord Egon removed and polished his slipping pince-nez and returned them to their perch on his nose. “We will investigate your vapourous disturbance, sir; pray lead us to it.”

“Well zpoken, Egon!” cried his business partner, and the American doctor shook his head patronizingly, but stood to accompany his friends. The African shaman held his cordial glass high and said, in a perfect Etonian accent, “Here’s to Mr. Blackadder’s spirit—may it find peace!” before draining it. Blackadder had a momentary disquiet that the man might be referring to his own spirit, still comfortably housed within his body, but he recovered quickly. He magnanimously offered to pay for their meal, signed Prince George’s name to the bill, and they quit the gustatory establishment.

 

 

* * *

Blackadder was grateful the ghost resided on the very lowest level of the house; the prince never ventured below stairs and they’d get on with their business much better without his interference. In fact, Blackadder considered, the prince didn’t seem to realize there was such a thing as a ‘below-stairs’, he seemed to think all the food and drink magically appeared at regular intervals throughout the day like manna from heaven.

Every member of the servant’s hall was there to see the fun: Whatney, the upstairs maid; Old Duff, the elderly bootblack who cared for all the prince’s footwear; Burbage, the underfootman; Miss Malmsy and Mrs. Plunkett, the first and second cooks; Baldrick—they were all there, and the rest as well. They watched, apparently fascinated at the sight of Lord Egon and his eccentric companions standing at the top of the stairs to the cellar, listening with great interest to the various hellish noises emanating from below.

“Let’s go!” said Dr. Stanz, only to be pulled back by his more cautious friends.

“Ooooooooh," went the crowd of servants.

“Uh, Raymond, don’t you think we ought to take a light down with us?” said the American spiritualist, amused at Dr. Stanz’s enthusiasm.

“Allow me,” said their host, Blackadder, and, with his typical ‘better you than me’ flair, he produced a lamp more suitable to a windy night on the deck of a ship than a brief foray into a root cellar. The gaggle of servants nodded and _tch_ ’ed in approval.

“Good idea,” Dr. Venk said, “we don’t want it blowing out on us accidental-like." He took the lamp in a firm grip and nodded to the butler. “Uh... y’know, you don’t have to come with us—if you don’t want to.” It was uncommonly gracious of him, he obviously rightly suspected that Blackadder was afraid of the apparition.

“Nonsense! Mr. Blackadder isn’t afraid!” piped up little Edgar, who had apparently formed an admiration for the sharp-tongued butler whilst staring at him. “Mr. Blackadder, I bet he isn’t afraid of anything!”

“The little laddie’s right,” agreed Pobswaddle, the corpulent pot-washer, “Mr. B. wouldn’t want to miss out on the fun! He’s the bravest man in England!”

Baldrick jumped up to put his two pence in. “Cor’, he’s the bravest man in the whole, wide world is our Mr. B.! He ain’t afraid of no ghost!!! Three cheers for Mr. B! Hip, hip—”

“HOO-RAH!” chorused the servants.

“Will you for heaven’s sake and for the sake of your own skins, SHUT UP!” cried Blackadder. “All right! All right! I’m going down, down into that evil pit of darkness and horror, down to potential disaster and dismemberment, down to torment and madness and dread! Happy now?!”

The servants applauded politely and Edgar beamed at him, smiling for the first time that day. Blackadder’s eyes rolled up in his head in a spasm of acute exasperation.

Both Lord Egon and Zed-mor had brought carpetbags with them. The African shaman opened his first. He drew from it several feathered pouches on thongs, which he placed about the necks each man about to embark upon the adventure. “Merely a precaution," was his only comment.

Lord Egon then opened his carpetbag and extracted from its depths a Y-shaped root tied to a red silken thread. He held the thread between his fingertips and the root spun madly, then suddenly stopped—pointing straight at the entrance leading below.

“Zat’s a ‘spengle’,” Dr. Stanz whispered to Blackadder. “Zere’s no finer spengler in za land than your old friend, Egon, you know.”

They grimly began their descent into the frigid cellar; Lord Egon spengling at the fore followed by his partner, Blackadder hanging to the back behind the shaman, the American doctor holding the hurricane lamp aloft in the middle, shedding light over them all.

The ghost had ceased moaning, but a rather hopeful jingling sound, like tiny coins in a sack being shaken, filled the darkness around them.

“What the hell is that?” muttered Blackadder.

“Dunno,” said Dr. Venk carelessly. “Maybe he was a miser and he’s running his non-existent fingers through his non-existent coins?” A chill ran up Blackadder’s spine.

_“For the love of God, Montressor!”_

The entire team leapt, startled, into the air when the disembodied voice rang out. “ _For the love of God, Montressor!_ ” it repeated more softly, lapsing into sobs.

“This way,” said Lord Egon with authority, and he and his spengle led them to a wall—the only bare wall in the cellar, in fact.

Blackadder’s eyebrows drew together. “It’s a newer brick than the rest, he commented. “I remember noticing that some years ago when I came into service here, then dismissing it from my mind.”

“Ach, you may have been influenced to dizregard zis wall, mine friend,” the stout occultist said with glee. “Depends on za power of whoeffer it vas who imprisoned zis poor fellow! Do you feel za cold? It emanates from here!”

“Well, it’s cold, yes. I mean, it _is_ a cellar. That is why we keep the food down here, you know.”

“Spirit of the dead! Give us your name, that we might start you on your long journey to the afterworld!” Zed-mor’s hands described arcane symbols that seemed to linger in the air long after they had gone on to signify other figures.

“I can’t wait to write a paper on this! I may even sell this one to the popular press,” chortled Dr. Venk, only to be shushed by Dr. Stanz.

Lord Egon put down the spengle and touched the brick wall. “Get a hammer.”

“...Wailing Wall Wakes Walesian Prince, as written by B. Nonymous.... Excuse me?” The curt request interrupted Blackadder’s train of thought. He was considering the possibility of a hefty pay off from the local yellow press, as suggested by the American doctor.

“A sledgehammer,” said Egon. “Get one. This wall’s coming down.”

The quiet sobbing stopped and all was silence.

 

 

* * *

A sledge-hammer was remarkably easy to procure. Ploppy, the back-gardener, dispatched his son, Ploppy, to get one from the tool shed, and a protesting Baldrick was told to start swinging. Owl-eyed, little Edgar watched the debate from a dark corner seated atop a barrel of pickles, his chin propped up on his knees. He’d slipped downstairs unnoticed while the servants were busy retrieving the hammer.

“I think you should know, Mr. B., me mum don’t approve of me going within a foot—or even a mile—of a ghost! She says ‘if you don’t know where it’s been, love, leave it be,’” Baldrick sniveled up at the unsympathetic butler. Prodded roughly, he swung the sledgehammer at the brick, narrowly missing a priceless crate of Chateau Nuit-de-la-grenouille ‘73. It was the prince’s favourite wine for use when seducing young ladies.

“Mind how you swing that deadly weapon, you fool! I don’t know why your mother would say such a thing, considering she mated with an orang-utan to produce you.”

The African shaman looked at Baldrick with some interest. He’d actually heard of such things, but never seen the issue of such union. Hmmmm... the little fellow did look a mite... sub-human.

“I don’t suppose, Mr. B., that you would be at all interested in... my cunning plan?”

“NO! Now, get on with it!”

The unfortunate drudge swung again, this time with more accuracy. The sledgehammer hit the wall solidly, then bounced off, sending violent shockwaves up the tiny servant’s arms. “UNGF!” he grunted, crumpling to the flagstones. The four ghost-chasing scholars looked at one another, at a loss for words at the pathetic spectacle. Blackadder had no such problem.

“Oh, for pity’s sake, put your back into it, you turnip-loving, lower-class twit!" He snatched the hammer from the unresisting hands of his lackey and swung it in a mighty arc, connecting dead-on with the brickwork. This masterstroke must have hit some keystone, for the entire wall, solid moments before, crumpled to bits all over the floor... and all over the prostrate Baldrick. Blackadder suddenly found himself eye-to-socket with a grisly skeleton wearing a worm-eaten jester’s cap on its skull, wrapped in chains and strands of bells. “Bloody hell, he muttered, revolted but otherwise unruffled.

“I’ll save you, Mr. B!” piped a squeaky voice from the shadows.

“Hmmmm?” Blackadder turned to see who’d cried out, when he was suddenly hit amidships by a hurtling projectile. Young Edgar had stood upon his pickle barrel, issued his challenge, then launched himself at the grotesque monster threatening his idol. Unfortunately, he’d missed his mark and ploughed directly into Blackadder.

“Aaaauuuugh!” the butler tried to keep his footing, but found it difficult with the great number of bricks scattered about on the floor. He tried to flail his arms, but the tiny child wrapped round him made an effective straight-jacket. Blackadder fell backwards, tripped over Baldrick and smashed his head on the corner of the priceless crate of Chateau Nuit-de-la-grenouille ‘73. Edgar landed safely on top of him.

Blackadder came to his senses not very many moments later, opening his eyes to find a single, enourmous eye staring into his two. “Gah!” he cried, and Edgar, who had been peering into his face a half-inch from his nose to see when he’d be waking up, jumped back.

Ignoring the child, the butler cast about confusedly. He found himself stretched out on a lumpy bag of turnips next to the still-unconscious Baldrick. Baldrick sighed happily, stretched and curled up comfortably. Apparently the turnips were less lumpy than his own mattress by the kitchen fire.

The men of science were deep in conversation amongst themselves over by the opening in the wall. Blackadder noted that in his ‘absence’ the skeleton had been released from its chains and taken down. They had wrapped it up in some old burlap flour sacks that they’d found in the larder.

“Ah, Mr. Blackadder—you’re among the living again,” joked Dr. Venk.

Dr. Stanz leaned over and helped Blackadder to his feet. “Ve haf been talking mit za spirit!” he cried.

“I assume you mean you’ve been talking with some spirit, meaning ‘with some excitement’?” said Blackadder expectantly. He’d been hoping the ghost was gone now that the wall was down.

“No! Mit za ghost himself! Is it not vunderbar?! Seems zis little fellow here vas named ‘Fortunato’. He vas a kitchen-drudge, fanatically devoted to za man he lackey’d for, name of ‘Montressor.’ He seems to me to have been a bit of a ninny, unt he vas putting up mit a lot of abuse at the hands of his master for it. One day, Montressor found him, drunk as a newt, sitting on top of some casks of sherry. Za silly young fellow had been hitting the Amontillado pretty hard unt had dressed himself in the costume he’d worn at the last Servant unt Lackey’s Masque. He vas singing a rousing rendition of ‘Merlin, za Happy Pig’ when Mr. Montressor caught him in za act unt went mad. ‘Zat’s za final straw!’ he bellowed, threw some chains ‘round the poor unfortunate nit unt bricked him up in no time! No one ever let him out despite his halloos for help, and now he von’t leave until he’s apologized for being a slacker unt been told he’s a good fellow unt did his job well. So, go on, tell him he’s a good fellow unt done well.”

“What? Me? You want me to talk to the creature?”

Lord Egon spoke up. “You must, Edmund. We’ve tried, we’ve told him he was a good servant ‘til we’re blue in the mouth. We’ve told him how hard it is to get good help nowadays and how valued he’d be today, but he’s not having any of it. He wants to hear it from the master of the servants’ hall. And that’s you, Edmund.”

“Listen, Egon—I mean, Lord Egon.” Blackadder’s eyes narrowed at a sudden thought. “Just one moment—before I forget, I’ve a question I’ve been meaning to ask you since the first moment I clapped eyes on you at Ye Delicacies of India & Fortnum’s. How on earth did you, of all people, attain the exalted rank of His Lordship, anyway?”

Lord Egon had the grace to look embarrassed, and Dr. Venk had to answer for him. “Well, there’s a story in that!” crowed the young American spiritualist. “It seems King George claimed he’d got a ghost in his underwear drawer, but he wouldn’t let any priests exorcise it because he thought they were soldiers from the planet of the Inland Revenue and would tax him for all the knobs he had on his wardrobes!”

Blackadder sighed. “Sounds like our sovereign lord and king, all right.”

“Anyway, good old Dr. Egon Flueglesweitzermitzengollum here gets called onto the case. Egon goes in and determines that there isn’t a ghost in the underwear drawer at all, but since the king’s been storing treacle in his bedroom, it’s been attracting mice! It’s mice causing all the noises in the night, you see! So Egon looks King George right in the eye and tells him that ghosts love sweets, and if he’ll just put the treacle in the larder, they’ll go away—and whaddaya know, it works! So Egon gets himself a Lordship!”

“Actually, I wouldn’t even use the title if it weren’t for my wife, Lady Janine,” said Egon ruefully.

"Lady Janine?" Janine... ah, yes. Blackadder remembered her as a skinny redhead with a tongue that rivaled his own for sharpness. Worst low-class, nasal French accent he’d ever heard, too. “I suppose we can’t blame her for wanting to dispense with the name ‘Mrs. Egon Flueglesweitzermitzengollum’.”

“So, stop stalling and let’s get this show on the road, Mr. Butler,” continued Dr. Venk insolently. “Tell the little ghost it’s a good boy, and we can all go home.”

“Oh, Gawd....” With a heavy, put-upon sigh, Blackadder took a few tentative steps forward and spoke in a sickly sweet, placating voice at the gaping hole in the wall.

“Uh, coooo-eeee, and hallo. Yes. Well. You’ve been a fine lackey, uh....”

“Fortunato!” hissed Dr. Stanz.

“...Fortunato. No one could peel potatoes like you did. And the way you ran a message through the streets of London! Almost never lost your way and disappeared for a week, did you?”

“Good! The cold’s lifting! Keep at it!”

Blackadder, unused to giving complements, continued as best he could. “And I’m sure you spit-shined each of the chamber-pots and placed them just so under each of the beds. As a lackey, you’ve been a credit to your profession and I’m very, very, very, very, very, very, _very_ proud of you!”

“Oh, thank you, thank you, Mr. B.!” Baldrick was sitting up woozily, his arms outstretched. “How long I’ve waited for this moment! Me heart is full! Oooooo....” He passed out on his turnip-mattress again.

“Oh, good God!” winced Blackadder.

But something was happening. The air in the cellar seemed to glow as the happy spirit of Fortunato, free at last, gave a great cry of relief and disappeared in a flash, never to return again.

“It worked!” “Good journey, voyager!” “Well done, old man!” “Didn’t think ya had it in ya!” “You’re my heeee-ro, Mr. Blackadder!” The scientists crowded around Blackadder, patting him on the back, Edgar jumping up and down and waving his little arms in the air.

With a flourish, Dr. Venk then presented the butler with a piece of paper.

“We’ve been talking. England has more ghosts per square foot than any other country in the world. Zed-mor and I have decided to join Lord Egon and Dr. Stanz and form a new company—we’re gonna call it ‘Ye Ghostebusters, Ltd.’, and you’re our very first client. Historic occasion, really. I think you’ll find our bill comprehensive.”

Blackadder stared at the piece of paper in disbelief. “£500! £500?! You’re charging me £500!? But Egon! Egon, what about our old school days! Aren’t we old school chums?!”

“I’m sorry, Edmund, but truth to tell, we were never really chums—you just sat next to me during exams so you could copy my answers.”

“But you didn’t perform the exorcism—I did all the work! Not to mention being knocked senseless by that tiny menace purported to be your nephew, Venk! This is outrageous! I’ll not pay this!”

After a moment of uncomfortable silence, the African shaman grimly took a bone rattle, decorated with rough-cut gems and strips of leather, from his carpetbag. He shook it at the butler and began to intone, “Njoroge luogo kemane njoroge....”

“Oh, all right! I’ll pay your usurious fee! But you lot are no better than highwaymen, than extortionists!”

Blackadder began to formulate a cunning plan to get Prince George to reimburse him for the bill as he wrote a check from his personal finances, made out to Ye Ghostebusters, Ltd.

 

 

* * *

“...it’s called the Montressor Fund, Your Majesty,” said Blackadder. “It’s for the protection of young maidens from the predations of older men. They give parties for the maidens and invite only good-looking young men to them, especially good-looking young men who donate freely. As there are so few donors, the ratio is about twenty girls to each young man.”

“Montressor—why, there’s a name I’ve not heard in a flea’s age!”

“You know of a ‘Montressor’, Your Majesty?” gulped Blackadder.

“Oh, yes, if I remember rightly, he was the personal-valet johnny who used to butle for me before you, Bl’adders! Came to a raw-ther nasty end. Found gibbering under a sack of turnips in the cellar, screaming that a raven’d got in and was menacin’ him. Mad as a melon, you know,” the prince shook his head sadly. “Yes, I remember when they dragged him out by the bootlaces in a white jacket with veddy, veddy long arms, screaming, ‘Why is a raven like a writing desk? Why, why, why is a raven like a writing desk?’ Poor old mugger-me-lad. Naturally we immediately had the entire lot of servants transported to Australia and hired a whole new set a few days later. Couldn’t have them spreadin’ rumours about insanity in the prince regent’s household, could we? Why, I shudder to think what the tabloids would have made of it!” The prince sniffed and rubbed an itchy spot on his lily-white nose. “So, Bl’adders, where’s my dinner?”

It was some moments before Blackadder picked his jaw up off the floor. Then he served dinner.

 

 

* * *

Mr. Blackadder sat at the dining room table in the servants’ hall, counting out rows of gold coins. Looking pleased with himself, he even whistled an off-key, jolly tune now and again.

“Why, Mr. B.!” his scruffy sidekick said, “It’s good to see you in a such a fine mood. Pleased by the acute lack of ghost-y presence in the larder, no doubt?”

“Not only that, Balders, not only that,” the butler took a copper coin from one of the smaller piles and tossed it at the little man’s head. “Here’s a ha’-penny, buy your mother a sympathy card from me! Pity about her life-long inability to bear children.”

“You’re very kind, Mr. B.”

“Not at all, not at all.” An expansive smile crept over Blackadder’s normally pessimistic features. “You know, at first, when I realized His Royal Dweebness had caused this entire problem with his callous treatment of our predecessors, I saw myself slipping, bit by bit, day by day, into that same dark pit as poor old Montressor. Someday, I realized, the straw would break the camel’s back and I’d be found, frothing at the mouth, having just walled you up, Baldrick, sitting on a pile of your beloved turnips. Next thing you know, I’d be comfortably ensconced in the Hotel Bedlam, the under-the-stair gang would find themselves toiling under the sun in a Bahaman sugar plantation singing slave spirituals, and—well let’s face it, Balders—no one would miss you, poor little clot-head that you are.”

“It’s very good of you to say so, Mr. B. But I must be pointin’ out to you, this doesn’t explain your rare, fine mood.”

“‘Rare’ and ‘fine’, indeed, Balders! I suddenly remembered there were about twenty casks of the rarest, finest Amontillado sherry sitting in the cellar, and no one to claim ownership. I sold the sherry and pocketed a substantial profit, even after buying off those noxious Ghostebusters. A happy ending, Baldrick, and against all odds!”

“That’s as may be, Mr. Blackadder, sir, but that still don’t answer the most important question of all!”

“And that is?”

“Why is a raven like a writin’ desk?”

“Ah, Baldrick! The world may never know!”

 

_And it was not until 1845 that this riddle could be answered: A raven is like a writing desk..._

**_Because Poe wrote on both!_ **

 

Theme to “Amen & Amontillado”

Though unafraid of Man or Beast,  
He can’t abide a ghostly dweller!  
The prince demands a fulsome feast—  
But no one’s going down the cellar!

Blackadder, Blackadder!  
Though blood runs cold with dread,  
Blackadder, Blackadder!  
It’s better “fed" than “dead”!

Blackadder, Blackadder!  
Your future is their past!  
Blackadder, Blackadder!  
“Poe”-etic to the last!


End file.
